Myanmar heads to the polls on Sunday (December 28, 2025) as it battles a civil war that has ravaged parts of the country as well as one of Asia’s worst humanitarian crises.
Already one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries, Myanmar has been hammered by a conflict triggered by a 2021 coup in which the military ousted an elected civilian government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
UN says Myanmar junta using ‘brutal violence’ to force people to vote
Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis is one of the most severe in Asia, driven by the intensifying civil war and repeated natural disasters, including a massive earthquake in March.
The ruling junta has previously suppressed information about a severe food crisis gripping the country by pressuring researchers not to collect data about hunger and aid workers not to publish it, Reuters has reported, besides cracking down on journalists since the coup.
